Of Starlight (Translucent Book 2)

by Dan Rix

  The realization made me giddy. If I wasn’t guilty, if dark matter had made me do it, then my conscience was clean, my soul was pure, and I could finally let myself fall in love with Emory.

  Her eyes darted across the corkboard, brows low and skeptical.

  Didn’t she see it? “Megan,” I started again.

  “Shh.” She raised a finger and continued to study the diagram.

  “Megan, listen to me—”

  “You got it backward,” she whispered.

  “What? Megan, don’t you get it? This means we’re off the hook.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” she said, finally facing me. “Dark matter didn’t find us until after we killed Ashley. Maybe there’s a connection between dark matter and her being out there that night—if it influenced her sleepwalking or something—maybe. But we’re still the ones who killed her, Leona. We’re still the ones who hid her body and didn’t call the cops. That’s still on us.”

  “But . . . but think of how unlikely that is, Megan.” I clung desperately to my theory. “What are the chances of a random meteorite containing dark matter landing next to us, of all people, when we just happen to be the ones who killed the last girl who had it? Unless it chose us specifically because we were special or something. Unless it chose us to kill her.”

  “No, unless it chose us because we killed her,” said Megan.

  I drew back. “What . . . what do you mean?”

  “Maybe it’s drawn to weakness,” she said. “Maybe it was drawn to Ashley because of her sleepwalking, because that was something it could exploit, and maybe it was drawn to us—to you—because of your guilty conscience. Because you were weak. You let it right in, didn’t you? You thought it was your salvation, and you let it manipulate you. Maybe that’s what’s going on, Leona.”

  I turned away, feeling sick.

  I knew she was right.

  Huddled in bed on Thursday night, I stared at the red digits of my alarm clock floating in the darkness—10:06 p.m.—as a choking terror closed around me.

  Even with the locks changed, I didn’t feel safe. I would never feel safe. Because I had done something terrible, I had murdered, and now the terrible creature was coming for me.

  Because I had killed Ashley.

  Dark matter was preying on my guilt, like it had preyed on Ashley’s sleepwalking. The doom hung over me, suffocated me. I pulled my blankets up to my chin and gaped out at my dark bedroom, ears tuned to every tiny creak, every skitter, every rustle. Would I hear her if she tiptoed?

  She had taken the hidden key.

  The horror of it had only begun to dawn on me. Someone invisible was coming to murder me. But what if she never came? That would be even worse, wouldn’t it? I would spend the rest of my life in paranoia, hiding from her, wondering when she would strike. I pictured it now—me as a middle-aged entrepreneur in a big mansion, working late into the evening while the red-orange sun set outside my home office. I’d hear footsteps in the house, but no one there, floorboards creaking in an empty room. And I’d wonder. After all these years, was Ashley Lacroix finally coming to get me?

  I rolled over, feeling sick. It was a terrible future. I should have followed her that night, I should have followed her footsteps and never let her out of hearing range. Now she could be anywhere—standing in the middle of the dark street outside my house, or in a park somewhere, or watching her brother through his sliding glass window. I shuddered, and suddenly I really wished he was here. I wished someone was here. Megan had gone home a few hours ago since it was a school night.

  The furnace rumbled to life deep in the house, blowing warm air through the vents. The sound set me on edge. The whoosh of air masked all the night sounds, making me deaf to an intruder, and a fear surfaced in my brain. Ashley could have slipped inside the house while my dad was changing the locks, she could use the drone of the furnace to sneak up the hall, she could . . . she could be in my bedroom right now.

  I gasped and threw off the covers, my heart slamming. How would I know? Panic rose in my throat, and I dashed across the rug and slammed on the light switch. Blinding yellow light flooded the empty room. No furniture. Nowhere to hide. Frantic now, I skirted around the walls, groping ahead of me—hiding under my bed, kneeling by my clothes, standing in the closet . . .

  No one.

  I finished my search and straightened up, adrenaline prickling under my skin. I couldn’t do this. I’d never be able to fall asleep like this, like a sitting duck, knowing she could attack at any time. Maybe she’d spent the last week learning how to pick a lock, and now all she had to do was open the front door and walk right in and strangle me.

  The furnace cut off, leaving an ominous silence.

  I had to protect myself. I had to.

  Even if it meant playing right into its hand.

  I didn’t have a choice. Jaw clamped in determination, I dug around under my bed and pulled out a shoebox, tipping off the lid. I lifted out the contact lens case and held it up to eye level.

  Dark matter.

  Yes, Leona.

  A feverish chill worked its way down to my bones. If the hunter was invisible, then the prey should be invisible too.

  I stripped quickly and dipped my finger into the case. The familiar cool tingle spread up my finger, and when I raised my hand to my face . . . I didn’t appear to have a hand. At once, my breathing calmed. Maybe, just maybe, I could survive this.

  While dark matter swallowed the rest of my body, I appraised my bedroom. She would come here first, check the bed, probably.

  I gathered some dirty clothes and lay them in a zigzag on the mattress, then pulled the covers up to the top of the pillows, readjusting the lump to look convincing, like I was sleeping on my side. I tossed a hoodie over where my head ought to be.

  Now fully invisible, I crept out into the hall and peered left and right. I chose the foyer to stake out, where I backed into the corner and pulled my knees to my chest. Tucked out of the way, I doubted she would accidentally wander into me.

  Then I waited.

  My eyes darted across the front door—from the latch to the peephole to the hinges—peeled for any sign of movement. A clock ticked in the kitchen. I rested my chin between my knees, breathing shallowly.

  I let myself nod off.

  I woke up abruptly, and the back of my head banged into the wall. I stared around the dark foyer, fear dripping down my spine as my lungs drew panicky gasps. My limbs ached from being folded up. It had to be past midnight.

  The front door gave a tiny creak.

  I clamped my hand over my mouth, stifling my breath.

  Then the door wobbled, followed by a metallic crunching sound in the doorknob—the sound of a key being shoved into a lock that didn’t fit. The latch made a frustrated clacking.

  Ashley was here.

  Chapter 13

  The door quit rattling, leaving a silence that made my scalp bristle. I rose to my feet, back flush against the wall. She was right outside my house, on the front porch . . . doing what?

  Fear buzzed in my fingertips.

  What do I do?

  Through the windows, I saw nothing. Blackness. The porch light hadn’t come on, since she hadn’t triggered the motion detector. My brain processed frantically. What would she do next?

  She’d try the back door.

  I darted through the dining room and into the kitchen, stepping on the balls of my feet. Dark windows slunk by, nothing visible outside. No movement—

  The back door wobbled and jiggled.

  I froze, one foot in the air. After a moment, she gave up. I stood perfectly still, listening. She had tried the front door and the back door. By now she would realize the locks had been changed. Would she try anything else? Or would she give up?

  If I woke my
parents . . . my dad would see the doors rattling on their own, and he would know what to do—No, no, no, he’d call the police, who would be useless. And first I’d have to take off the dark matter to wake them up, leaving me vulnerable. By then she could be anywhere. I had to stay on her now, while I knew where she was.

  A dull thudding came from the bathroom, sending a quiver through my heart. I glanced down to make sure I was still invisible, then crept forward and peeked inside. The sound came from the window, like she was shoving it with her palms, trying to open it.

  Locked.

  The sound cut off, and I heard a bush crunch outside the bathroom as she stepped down. Then silence. Just my own pounding heart. She was trying the windows . . . which were all locked. They latched on the inside and couldn’t be opened from the outside. I’d checked them on Saturday morning.

  But what if my parents had opened them to get some air? The week had been unusually hot.

  Idiot. Why hadn’t I checked before going to bed? I slid out of the bathroom doorway, making sure not to bump the door, and darted around the house to double-check. The windows in the kitchen and dining room were all closed. So were the ones in the living room. I ducked up the hallway and paused at my mom’s office. The door hung open a crack, not wide enough to fit through. I licked my lips and gave it a tiny nudge—praying Ashley didn’t see—and shimmied the rest of the way through.

  My gaze honed in on the east-facing window . . . the two inch gap between the window and sill. Crap. I raced around my mom’s desk and grabbed the frame. Had she spotted it? I tensed my arms, ready to shove it down.

  Something moved on the other side.

  I stopped breathing, just as the screen pushed in. I caught the glimmer of metal—a key, the hidden key—pushing in from outside. Floating in midair, the key ripped through the screen and began to saw sideways, then up, opening a flap large enough to fit a person.

  She was coming in.

  Now I heard a girl’s breathing on the other side, a steady inhale and exhale, so close I could feel the heat of her breath on my thighs.

  I lifted my hands off the frame and backed away, terrified. I couldn’t shut the window. She would realize I was invisible and I would lose my only edge. I backed into my mom’s desk, and the soft thud made me cringe.

  But she was outside, with all the sounds of wind and traffic and raccoons. She didn’t hear.

  The flap of screen lifted, ever so slowly, and the window slid up, one screech at a time. She was coming in through the office. She was coming inside. Oh God.

  Before she heard me, I fled back into the hall, only to halt in the face of the long, dark corridor. I stared at the row of pitch black doorways, sick with dread. Where could I hide?

  A thump came from my mom’s office.

  Feet landing hard on carpet.

  She was inside.

  I darted into my bedroom, glanced around, ran to the bed. Under the bed? Too obvious. Slow, creaking footsteps moved down the hall, coming straight for my room. No time. Heart in my throat, I scampered into the closet and tucked myself between two dresses, then gripped the sliding doors and eased them shut, trying to lift as much weight off the rollers as I could.

  Through the gap, I saw my bedroom door swing inward, and I pulled my hand back.

  The doorway was empty. Nothing there.

  But then footsteps moved into the room. I was trapped in the closet. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have gone to the living room, where she wouldn’t check. Peeking out, I could see my bed, my fake sleeping body.

  The floorboards in front of my bed squeaked.

  Then nothing.

  Silence.

  I stared out, eyes wide. She was standing in front of my bed, watching me sleep. Ew. I suppressed the urge to shudder.

  The hoodie floated up into the air and dropped to the side, and the blankets peeled back, revealing my lumpy clothes.

  More silence.

  What was she thinking right now?

  I tried to swallow, but it didn’t quite take.

  Movement across the room. My eyes flicked to a dirty pair of jeans, depressing under an invisible foot before rebounding. She was walking around. I heard her. My backpack lifted off the ground, and the zippers opened, rummaging through my stuff. Nothing in there. She dropped the backpack and went for my smartphone next. Hovering in midair, the screen flashed with my recent text threads.

  She wouldn’t find anything. Megan and I had long been in the habit of censoring our text messages. My browser popped up next. Old Google searches I’d done on dark matter, Rincon Systems, Air Force Space Command. Each one scrolled all the way to the bottom. She was reading . . . learning about me.

  A shiver finally shook its way out of my body, and my teeth knocked together—click. I clamped my hand over my mouth, horrified. The phone jerked a little, meaning she’d turned around.

  The phone drifted back to the ground and her footsteps approached the closet. I bit off a whimper, all my nerves sick with fear.

  Then the closet door slid back.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, squeezed my palm tighter over my mouth, and willed my body not to tremble. My thundering pulse sounded like it was right inside my head and far off at the same time. I didn’t breathe. I could feel her there, feel her looking in at me, hear her breathing. One move and I was dead.

  Would she reach in?

  My lungs began to ache, desperate for oxygen. But she was still there. She would hear me inhale. Please go away . . . please go away . . .

  The floor outside the closet squeaked a little, and her footsteps shuffled out of the bedroom, to my immense relief. Was she leaving? I let out a shaky breath, along with all my pent-up tension, and nearly collapsed on my rubbery knees.

  A muted bumping sound came from my mom’s office, followed by silence. Had she left? I waited another five minutes, listening intently, but I heard nothing else. At last I stumbled out of the closet, shivering and helpless.

  Emory.

  I needed him right now.

  I grabbed my phone, but my hand shook so badly I dropped it. Scrambling after it, I almost crushed it under my knees. At last I held the device upright, only to stare dumbly at it. On. How did I turn it on? My finger found the button, and the screen flashed on. Now what?

  Swipe.

  Swipe to unlock.

  I dragged my finger across, almost too jerky to register. Then my fingers tapped buttons at random, I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. I choked on a sob, and a tear hit the screen. I couldn’t even read the numbers. Just hazy figures. I was so cold.

  “Emory,” I whimpered. “I want to call Emory.”

  The phone did nothing.

  Something surfaced from deep in my mind. Voice activation. I had to say something specific to wake it up. A special voice command I’d programmed in a long time ago.

  “This is Leona,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even.

  The phone chirped.

  “Call Emory.”

  A robotic female voice said, “Calling Emory Lacroix,” and I nearly died from relief. His face flashed on my screen as it began to ring. I closed my eyes and held it to my cheek, teeth chattering again.

  “Everything okay?” he answered after the third ring. For some reason, I knew he’d pick up.

  I shook my head. “No. Not really.”

  “What’s wrong?” he said, alarmed.

  “Can you come get me?” I whispered.

  As I counted off the minutes, wondering what was taking him so long, my brain slogged through what had happened, barely functioning. She’d broken into my house, she’d come for me.

  And I’d just made a horrible mistake.

  The bed, the clothes under the blankets . . . Ashley knew I’d wanted to fake her out. And she’d seen
that we’d changed the locks, she’d seen my research on dark matter on my cell phone, which meant she now knew that I knew she was invisible.

  She would be upping her game.

  I hugged my legs to my chest, trembling violently. I knew what I had to do. I had known for a while now.

  Yes, Leona, said the voice in my head.

  I had to kill Ashley before she killed me.

  I had to kill her again.

  “Tell me what happened,” said Emory, when I slid into his convertible ten minutes later—top up, thank God.

  “Drive . . . just drive,” I said, peeling off the last of the dark matter from my bare feet and scraping it into the contact lens case.

  He watched me, but said nothing.

  I’d thrown on a loose tank top and shorts, so I was immensely grateful for the heat in his car. My core was still ice cold.

  He put the car in gear and gunned it up the street. Only when I counted four blocks between me and my house did I let myself relax. But I wasn’t about to tell him what had happened. Telling him would only make him worry and want to help me, which was the last thing I wanted. If Megan was right, I was still his sister’s murderer.

  I was the reason this creature had possessed her body.

  To have him save me from her, given the circumstances, would be the deepest shame. I would rather die.

  “You going to tell me what happened?” he said.

  “Can I just be with you right now?” I said.

  “Never gotten a straight answer from you before,” he said, rolling down his window to spit out a piece of gum, filling the car with chilly gusts. “Don’t know why I thought I’d get one now.”